Commander Showdown — Roon vs Brago

Commander Showdown is a series that compares and contrast two similar commanders, analyzes differences in strategy and deck construction, and evaluates how those differences are represented by the data here on EDHREC.

Modern Masters 2017 is just around the corner, and the set is chock full of amazing cards and sweet draft archetypes. The one that catches my eye is the white-blue pair, which Adam Prosak’s article described as “White-Blue Blink – Use creatures with enter the battlefield abilities and ways to reuse these abilities.” In anticipation of playing this awesome strategy in Limited, I’d like to spend this week’s Showdown with the most famous blink strategies in Commander: the kings of flicker, Roon of the Hidden Realm and Brago, King Eternal.

Made You Blink!

Roon and Brago are both commanders that exile permanents and return them to the battlefield, an ability commonly referred to as “blink” or “flicker.” As Prosak stated above, this strategy is most often used to repeat enters-the-battlefield (ETB) abilities. Roon’s is an activated ability that requires some mana and a tap, while Brago’s is a triggered ability that fires when he does combat damage to a player.

But if we look closer, these two commanders are actually very different.

Blink and You Might Miss it

The first (and most obvious) difference is that Roon is green. Depending on your point of view, a commander with three colors instead of two can either be a boon or a burden. On the one hand, three colors makes mana fixing much more difficult, while on the other, it opens your deck up to thousands of new card choices. In this particular instance, I personally find mana-fixing to be quite easy for Roon precisely because he’s green, giving him access to excellent ramp effects. By contrast, Brago’s ramp and mana-fixing needs to be primarily artifact-based.

The next big difference is that Roon’s ability only targets creatures. Brago can target any nonland permanent while Roon is limited to creatures. This necessitates a creature-heavy build for Roon decks, which means when choosing between a sorcery or a creature (for example, Rampant Growth and Farhaven Elf) a Roon player will nearly always pick the creature to maximize the value.

Brago, however, is under no such constraints. He targets any number of artifacts, enchantments, or even planeswalkers. So even though Roon has access to green cards Brago can’t touch, Brago has access to cards Roon won’t touch.

In fact, let’s take a look at the average deck pie chart for each commander:

A typical Roon deck has a whopping ten more creatures than a Brago deck. Ten! That’s a gigantic difference: one quarter of your deck versus over one-third. Notice that, as expected, Brago makes up for this by having bigger slices of enchantments and artifacts.

If you’re considering building a flicker deck, this is the first big signal to help you decide which of these commanders is right for you. Make sure you ask yourself which cards you’re most excited about blinking. If you want to abuse Panharmonicon by casting Eerie Interlude with an army of enters-the-battlefield creatures, that’s probably up Roon’s alley. If you’re more excited at the idea of repeatedly enchanting and flickering a Reality Acid to take out pesky permanents, Brago’s your guy.

There are two final differences I want to mention. Not only do Roon and Brago differ in types of cards they can target, but also in number of cards they can target. Roon selects one creature at a time, but Brago can choose any number of nonland permanents you control. Not only that, but the flicker effect’s speed is different too: Roon returns the exiled creature at the end step while Brago brings them back right away.

This makes a world of difference for these two decks. Brago’s mana rocks suddenly become much more appealing, since he can flicker all of your rocks and bring them back into play untapped for your second Main Phase. Basalt Monolith and Mana Vault sure are a lot better when you can blink them to bypass their downside. Planeswalkers are crazy powerful here too, since you can activate their loyalty abilities, blink them with Brago to reset their loyalty, and activate their abilities a second time that turn.

Of course, Brago’s flicker effects are largely restricted to your turn, a constraint that Roon doesn’t share. He may be slower to bring creatures back to the battlefield, but his ability can be used on any player’s turn, and on any player’s creature. In a pinch, Roon can be used to take a creature out of combat to keep you alive. Also, since his blink has a delay, he can even save a creature from a Wrath of God. Roon may be a very creature-based deck, but that doesn’t stop him from being a trickster in his own right.

Venn Diagram Time

Ultimately, none of this musing gives us as much information as the data, so let’s get to the fun part. Below is a chart comparing the Top and Signature cards for each deck, to find the overlap:

Hexproof Ya Later, Alligator

There’s a lot to sift through here, but let’s start with a quick observation:

Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, two of the most popular and most-played equipment in the format, are not in the “Both” column. They’re only in Brago’s, which seems odd. Swiftfoot Boots even came in Evasive Maneuvers, Roon’s preconstructed deck, and if we know anything about the Precon Effect, it’s that players often run cards that came in the precon decks even if they’re suboptimal. Despite this, Roon decks only include the Boots 39% of the time and Greaves 29%.

This is probably the most important data on these commanders’ pages, because it shows us the most significant difference between Roon and Brago:

Brago is not different from Roon because of the types of permanents he flickers.

Brago is different from Roon because he’s a control deck.

Resetting those mana rocks is handy to keep up mana for instants on other players’ turns. Blinking Nevermaker can ruin an opponent’s draw step. And Lavinia of the Tenth and Stonehorn Dignitary sure keep your life total intact so you can make it to the late game. (Though for the record, I think Stonehorn Dignitary is pretty good in a Roon deck too.)

Thus, hexproof and shroud are absolutely vital for Brago players, because they need to keep him alive. They even have Counterspell on their Top Cards list to keep him safe. Without Brago, the deck has very few other blink effects, and loses its value engine.

Compare all of this to Roon. He doesn’t care as much about hexproof because he doesn’t necessarily need to stay alive to provide value. His deck of enters-the-battlefield creatures already does that. He also has more room for redundancy, with cards like Conjurer’s Closet and Mistmeadow Witch. As a result, Roon cares more about Ghostway than Swiftfoot Boots, saving his whole team from a wrath, not just himself from a Path.

Win Conditions

All of this brings us to win conditions, another tricky difference between these two commanders. If we look at Roon’s column, it looks pretty straightforward. You get a lot of repeated value from your creatures, and once it comes time to close out the game, you should be able to bash in with those creatures to get your opponents to 0. Given enough time, an army of Thragtusk or Avenger of Zendikar tokens can be overwhelming.

Brago, on the other hand, does not appear to have much in the way of face-bashing. Per his role as control, he largely has two main win conditions: infinite combos and stax.

This is pretty apparent by looking at his column. Combine Brago’s triggered ability with Strionic Resonator and a Basalt Monolith and you can generate an infinite amount of mana, along with any other triggered abilities you have on the battlefield. Pair that Peregrine Drake in his column with the aforementioned Deadeye Navigator and you can do the same. Since Brago has so few creatures, and not a lot of power himself, locking down the board until you draw into your combo is his primary game plan.

Of course, this also means that you need to securely lock down the board, which is why another of Brago’s main path to victory is a stax strategy. These cards may not show up on his Top or Signature Cards, but dig around on Brago’s page and you’ll find Stasis, Winter Orb, Static Orb, and Tangle Wire.

Who cares about untapping only one permanent when Brago can bring all your artifacts back onto the battlefield untapped? If you keep resetting the fade counters on Tanglewire, your opponents have to tap more permanents than you do every turn, which means you’ll accumulate an advantage over time.

That is kind of the problem, though: time. I won’t go so far as to say Roon is a quick deck, but he’s nowhere as slow as Brago. Brago, especially competitive lists, can really drag out the game. If you’re choosing between these two commanders, I can’t stress enough how important it is to know how you want to win the game. If you’re the kind of player who has the patience (and a playgroup with the patience) to run out a Stasis lock, Brago might be right for you. But if you really just want to blink a few things and bash some face, Roon may be more worthwhile for your playstyle.

Cards to Consider

Last up, I’d like to suggest a few cards that don’t see as much play in these decks as I think they should.

Roon

Cauldron of Souls. This card is a total blowout, and I’m shocked that Roon players aren’t running it. Save your board from a wrath? Check. Get additional enter-the-battlefield triggers? Check. Flicker your creatures so they lose the -1/-1 counter and can get Persist again? CHECK.

Perplexing Chimera. This card is usually associated with decks like Zedruu, but it’s actually brilliant for Roon. If an opponent plays something you like, you can nab it from them, then blink the Chimera back to your side of the field, ready to steal another spell.

Rite of Replication. I mentioned this card in my last article, but I’m gonna plug it again here. So what if tokens can’t be flickered? This card represents five enter-the-battlefield triggers, and that’s exactly what Roon wants.

I can’t believe I have to say this but Bant Charm. Not because of synergy, but just because it’s one of the best charms in EDH. It’s artifact removal. It’s creature removal, even indestructible ones. And it can stop a Chaos Warp in its tracks. The utility here is just too good to pass up.

Brago

Treachery. Is. Insane. Why exile an enemy creature with Oblivion Ring when you can steal that creature and untap your lands instead?

Mystic Remora. Resetting the counters on this card is really, really good.

Planeswalkers, generally. Venser, the Sojourner is a Top Card, but he’s not the only good one out there. Tezzeret the Seeker and Teferi, Temporal Archmage only have 34% and 17% popularity on Brago’s page, and that number should be much higher. Both provide excellent value, especially when you get to use their abilities multiple times a turn.

In the Blink of a Deadeye

It always tickles me to see EDH cards show up in non-EDH formats, so I’m excited to see what happens with things like Deadeye Navigator in Modern Masters 2017. And if, after you draft the set, you still want to play more blink, Roon and Brago might be able to help you out. But watch carefully–like all magicians who make things vanish into thin air, these commanders are not as simple as they first appear.

Until next time!

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Joseph Schultz works in a library by day and shuffles libraries by night. He hosts the EDHRECast with Matt Morgan and Dana Roach over at http://edhrecast.libsyn.com/ and has recently taken over as Editor for the articles here on EDHREC! He was also born exactly one year before Magic: the Gathering, which he thinks is probably some kind of sign. Follow @JosephMSchultz on Twitter!